Board to Bowen: Shut up, kid

UPDATED: Thank you to the concerned citizen who sent in some additional screenshots via ZippyShare!

As we’ve said, the September 30, 2019 Board of Trustees meeting was a veritable gold mine of Clear Creek ISD’s arrogance and incompetence. And the Six’s arrogance and incompetence came out in full force with Consent Agenda Item 7, Consider Approval of 2019-2020 Board Team Operating Procedures. As usual, CCISD doesn’t want us to see what those Operating Procedures are. Thankfully, there is one Trustee who is actually committed to transparency and has been since the day he was elected, Scott Bowen. Here’s what these Operating Procedures entail:

“Interpreted as critical”?! Oh, honey, everything can be interpreted as critical.

This first set of operating procedures leaves a lot of wiggle room for interpretation. Basically, anything could be interpreted as “critical” of the outcome of a vote, even a comment about why a trustee voted against something. We only know one trustee who explains why he votes against something, again because he’s committed to transparency. That’s why we elected him.

We know who this is geared toward.

So it comes as no surprise when CCISD is committed to being as opaque as possible that the Six would want to stop a trustee from posting anything that could be interpreted as “district business.” And once again, everything is open to interpretation.

We are especially offended by the part of the policy that states “the public may perceive…”. Apparently we the public are too stupid to know that a post by a trustee on their social media page is their opinion and not an official district post.

But we wonder, does this policy apply to trustees like Page Rander, who likes to rant against anything TEA? Is it the district’s official position that it wants to decimate TEA?!

Or how about this gem from Ms. Rander? Does the Texas Education Agency know about this?

Is it the District’s official position that the Texas Education Agency is worthless?!

Or maybe Jay Cunningham could clarify what “official District business” is. This post was on Nextdoor in response to someone asking about a tax rate that looked like it had been raised due to a CCISD decision.

Are we supposed to believe that the milquetoast Mr. Cunningham would actually advocate on behalf of our children? Remember, two of the schools granted classroom size waivers are in his district, and he remained silent throughout that entire Board meeting.

UPDATED: Or maybe this policy should have been in place when Chris Reed was on the Board? He certainly seemed to have a lot of opinions. This next post had the added benefit of including Mr. Cunningham!

Should he and Mr. Cunningham have been showing bias like this?And here we are with Mr. Reed being snarky. We have NEVER seen Mr. Bowen purposely bait anyone like this.

Again, we all know who this is geared toward, because he’s the only trustee that actually lets us know what’s going on behind the scenes.

It’s pretty clear that CCISD – not just the Six, but the Powers that Be – is still salty over Ann Hammond’s defeat. Think about how long it took to get Mr. Bowen’s picture and bio up on the CCISD Board of Trustees web page – and how quickly Win Weber’s bio and photo went up. (By the way, if you’re reading this, Mr. Bowen, you need a much stronger bio. We know you have a lot of accomplishments that aren’t listed and could expand on your career and experience.)

The good news is, this policy is entirely unenforceable, and we hope that all the trustees – not just Mr. Bowen – will take to social media to explain their votes and hold themselves accountable.

And if CCISD does try to enforce this gag order? There’s an amendment to the US Constitution that will surely prevail, the First Amendment. Government shall make no law restricting speech, and there are very few exceptions to this right. A public official stating their own personal opinion certainly is protected speech under the First Amendment.

Mr. Bowen, keep posting your informal, non-official District opinions after the Board meetings. We appreciate your transparency and are furious with CCISD for trying to curtail free speech.